Coolblue announces record turnover, further expansion

Dutch e-tailer Coolblue has reached a record turnover of 1.5 billion euros in 2019. Now it wants to invest in an expansion into Brussels and Wallonia, new stores in the Netherlands and services such as home delivery by bike and installation of appliances.

New record turnover

The Rotterdam-based company achieved a turnover increase of 10 % to 1.48 billion euros. The graph (below) however shows that while each year a new turnover record is set, growth is slowing down. Coolblue’s adjusted ebitda went up 28.1 % tot 34.5 million euros, resulting in a profit rise from 12.06 million euros to 15.16 million.

Coolblue says its investments in growth – mostly in new stores in Arnhem, Ghent, Haarlem and Tilburg – have paid dividends. Further growth was attributed to the decision to start selling and installing solar panels.

“Keeping up investments”

For this year, CEO Pieter Zwart says his company will continue to invest in its own infrastructure. Zwart wants to further expand Coolblue’s own installation service and triple the amount of parcels delivered by bike. Moreover, the company expresses the ambition to have a presence in each of the sixteen biggest cities in the Netherlands and Belgium. Two new locations have already been confirmed for 2020: Brussels (Belgium) and Leiden (the Netherlands).

The store in the centre of Brussels would not only be “the biggest Coolblue store ever”, according to Coolblue Belgium’s manager Camille Depuydt, but it will also be the company’s first store in a largely French-speaking area. Two cities in Wallonia (Charleroi and Liège) are also among the sixteen biggest in Belgium and the Netherlands, and therefore may well also witness a Coolblue store opening this year. Almere, Apeldoorn, Breda and Nijmegen are the Dutch cities on that list that still do not have a Coolblue store.